It is bad enough that we have a DNA database stuffed with innocents not charged with any offence, containing too many children and too great a percentage of ethnic minorities.

Now it turns out we don’t know the accuracy of the data. How many Postman Pats and Donald Ducks have entries on a system worthy of the Keystone Cops?

Not to be flippant about this very serious issue, but it reminds me of Starbucks fake names. Given my own unusual name, I don’t know why I’ve never used a “latte name.” I guess I shouldn’t start when or if my DNA is ever collected.

DNAcowboy, DNA degradation is an important point. There are a number of ways to store DNA to ensure its purity and stability but given that most of the technology was developed recently, we won’t know how well they’ll stand up until a decade or more from now. Meanwhile, I would say that anyone who wants to store DNA should do it in more than one format just as we would for precious digital photos – computer hard drive, external storage, CDs, and servers….

Degradation is a result of many factors including air, water, humidity….etc. Models can predict DNA degradation ‘efficiency’ over time. They usually give us a 100 years, still in development, coming from a french company called ImaGene. If you understand french you can jump here: